What to wear for your upcoming family portrait

Choose a color palette.

Choose a few colors in the spectrum that compliment where your shoot location is. For example, if you are going to the beach, consider blues, greens, and sandy colors. These will blend well with your setting and bring stronger color concept to your photo. I would typically recommend between two to five colors, using neutral color choices, with no white or black. Earth tones always look great. If you are struggling to land on the perfect handful of colors specifically to your family, message me. I would be happy to put together a color scheme that would provide guidance in choosing what to wear to your family portrait.

Family members with long hair: keep it down.

When hair is down, it helps shape the face, makes you look leaner/taller, and reflects sunlight better than short hair. Remember, family portraits, or photos in general, are freeze-frames of a specific moment in time. If you sport pony tail for the picture, that frozen moment will make you look like you have a slicked back bob. And if you use too little or too much hairspray, you will either have frizzy or plastic-looking hair. But if that’s the look you’re going for, go for it–as a professional photographer, I’ll make sure you and the family look good, hair down or up!

Late afternoon light makes everyone glow.

While Twilight by Stephanie Meyer was all about sparkling vampires, it would have been more accurate as “Late Afternoon”. Doesn’t sound as romantic, but it’s true, the sun’s light at an angle reflects off faces and hair in a unique, visually pleasing way. That angle of light makes hair and bodies have a natural-looking glow and gently illuminates facial imperfections or wrinkles. This effect can also be seen in the early morning, but try getting your teenager up at 6 a.m. for a family portrait. Get back to me on how successful you are.

When in doubt, wear jeans, and don’t wear shades.

Choosing what to wear for your family portrait doesn’t have to be stressful. Wearing jeans and an airy top look great with almost any backdrop. With jeans, you can dress up for a more formal look, or dress down to keep things casual. And most importantly, almost everyone has at least one pair of jeans. If you don’t, this can be a great opportunity to see what the big deal is with jeans and why they’re so great.

Many of my clients show up to their photo shoot in the late afternoon, when the sun hits their face while driving. They throw on a pair of sunglasses for the drive, and don’t think twice. Then, their pictures come out with the sunglasses marks on the top of their nose, or even worse: they have a minor sunglasses tan. Try not to wear shades when driving to the photo shoot. My camera will pick up on the shade differences. But, if you swear by sunglasses, don’t worry…it’s not a huge deal for me to Photoshop those marks out!

Take a look at some gallery pictures from previous family portraits below. All of them came out beautifully; some of which didn’t follow my general advice on what to wear for your family portrait, but still complimented the family and the family’s surroundings.